BLOGNESS AT 10: Parenting advice from Bruce Springsteen

Tuesday

Nov 14, 2017 at 10:21 AMDec 29, 2017 at 10:26 PM

Jeff Vrabel recalls the time he asked Bruce Springsteen about having a second child, because of course he did.

Jeff Vrabel

To mark the 10th anniversary of Blogness of the Edge of Town, during November we'll be featuring guest posts from Friends of Blogness about their greatest Springsteen moments of the last decade. Today's post is from freelance writer extraordinaire (and self-described "Springsteen obsessive") Jeff Vrabel.

***

Seven years ago, I asked Bruce Springsteen if we should have a second baby. Which is a weird thing to ask Bruce Springsteen, I grant you, but here’s why it made sense at the time:

The time was 2010, the place backstage at Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, where through the graciousness of a friend at the show, we caught the performances of “Save My Love” and “Because the Night” from the stage. Afterwards, we were shuttled right backstage to what is easily the most mundane-looking setting in which I’ll ever see Bruce Springsteen; it probably looks like the way to the printer room at your office, except for the HD monitors on the walls and all the Roots walking around. There were 20 or so of us there: Fallon’s people, Bruce’s people, Landau, Roy Bittan, assorted associates and hangers-on. I was in the last group. (Which was all dressed the same: dark jacket and either a creatively styled T-shirt or untucked plaid shirt beneath, like we were part of some federal Springsteen-based work-release program.)

I was there with my even-more obsessive friend Ben, whose wife had just given birth to a second daughter. My wife and I were kicking around our own follow-up as well, so I had babies on the brain. When we met Bruce — a moment I have no hope of remembering — I was introduced as having come to New York City from South Carolina, so he mentioned how he had just moved his daughter to Duke. (And, as someone who has equated Duke with supervillainy since the early ’90s, I note that in talking to Bruce Springsteen for 14 seconds we’d stumbled into the only topic on which I’ve ever really disagreed with him.)

Anyway, this redirected the conversation into the kind of small talk you might have at the play gym, about how one day they’re newborns and the next day you’re moving them into a dorm and sweet raisin danish I was talking to Bruce Springsteen about children and family units.

But after a few seconds of innocuous chatting — OK, look, I have no idea what happened, but for some reason I told Bruce we were thinking about another kid and erm, well, did he think it was a good idea?

And this is the crazy part: Instead of doing the obvious thing — stare blankly and stride wordlessly in an opposite direction — he did quite the other: Told a story about his own family, his own community, how he and Patti had their three children together so the kids could establish their own independent alliance, so that they’d have each other as they grew older, so that those bonds would be forged now and strengthened later. It probably went on a good 90 seconds. And at the end he said, “So yeah, I think it's a good idea, I think you should do it." And then he laughed his Bruce laugh and said, "But, y'know, heh heh, it's forever though. It's forever." And that was it — he departed. I gave him a two-handed handshake because I'm pathetic and ten seconds later texted my wife: “Literally just asked Bruce Springsteen if we should have the baby.” And, being gracious herself and well accustomed to this brand of obsessive nonsense, came back with what, in that situation, was probably the only logical response: “Well, what did he say?”

For the record, every time I tell this story, I feel a little more absurd, and a little more silly, and a little more validated. Faced with a left-field family-planning question by a ludicrous fanboy in an inappropriate setting, Springsteen realized that the fanboy was serious, that we’re all serious, that we’re asking these forever questions for real, that our lifetimes of listening make us truly prize his worldview, and that he’s making impacts not just through music but through people. And he responded in kind. Eleven months later, Kieran was born. His favorite song is “Badlands.”

Jeff Vrabel currently holds the Guinness World Record for Most Bruce Springsteen Songs Identified By Their Lyrics in One Minute. In his spare time, he's a freelance writer for GQ, Men's Health, the Washington Post, Success, Backstreets and BruceSpringsteen.net.